UnWrapNews.com

News of USA, News Of America

President Donald Trump’s mass deportations could impact their operations. However, Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for agriculture secretary.

President Donald Trump’s mass deportations could impact their operations. However, Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for agriculture secretary,

Farmers are becoming more concerned about the potential impact that President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies could have on their operations. However, Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, has dismissed the possibility of labor shortages as “hypothetical.” During her confirmation hearing with the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Rollins mentioned that if mass deportations affected farms, the administration would “hopefully solve some of these problems.” She agreed with senators when they labeled the issue as hypothetical, stating, “I do, too.”

This view contrasts with comments made by other Trump administration officials. Stephen Miller, a former top advisor, warned in a 2023 interview with The New York Times that mass deportations could lead to serious labor shortages. Experts and farmworker rights groups have also argued that deportations could threaten the stability of the agriculture industry.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, approximately 42% of farmworkers were undocumented in 2022, and there is no alternative workforce ready to fill these roles.

Rollins reassured the Senate committee that President Trump would not neglect the needs of farmers when implementing deportation policies.

While she voiced support for Trump’s approach to border security.

she also stressed that she would work with farmers to find solutions, including possibly expanding the H-2A visa program, which brings foreign workers to the U.S. temporarily for agricultural work. However, the program has been criticized for issues like wage theft and worker exploitation.

When questioned about whether deporting farmworkers could raise food prices, Rollins again downplayed the concern as hypothetical. Despite food prices in the U.S. rising faster than inflation, cheap farm labor has historically kept food prices more affordable. Stephen Miller has claimed that Americans would take over the deported workers’ roles, with higher wages and benefits offered to fill the gap.

Rollins, who hails from a rural background but lacks extensive experience in agriculture, admitted the issue is complex. She said that data would be key in guiding decisions. However, when asked about the number of farmworkers who could be impacted by mass deportations, Rollins acknowledged that the true scale of the issue is uncertain. “We don’t know, first of all, who ‘they’ are,” she said, referring to the ambiguity around the number of undocumented workers in agriculture. U.S. Department of Labor surveys indicate that about 40% of the 2 million farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *